Flight Safety Information
March 12, 2014 - No. 053
In This Issue
Satellite looking into missing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area'
Satellite looking into missing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area'
A Chinese satellite looking into the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight
370 "observed a suspected crash area at sea," a Chinese government agency said.
China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense
announced the discovery, including images of what it said were "three suspected floating
objects and their sizes."
The images in the Strait of Malacca were captured on March 9 - which was the day after
the plane went missing - but weren't released until Wednesday.
The Chinese agency gave coordinates of 105.63 east longitude, 6.7 north latitude, which would put it in waters northeast of
where it took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and south of Vietnam, near where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of
Thailand.
This isn't the first time that authorities have announced they were looking into objects or
oil slicks that might be tied to plane, which went missing last Saturday.
Earlier Wednesday, officials announced they had once again expanded the search area.
It now covers nearly 27,000 square nautical miles, more than double the size of the area
being searched just a day before.
Such a dramatic expansion at this stage of the investigation is troubling, said aviation
expert Richard Quest.
"At this stage in the investigation and search and rescue, I would have expected to see
by now a much more defined understanding of what the route was, where the plane was
headed and a narrowing of the search consequent upon that," he said.
Indeed, the lack of a clear direction prompted Vietnam to say that it's pulling back on its
search efforts until Malaysian authorities come up with better information on where to
look for the plane.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished early Saturday with 239 people on board during a
flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Phan Quy Tieu, Vietnam's vice minister of transportation, said the information Malaysian
officials provided was "insufficient."
"Up until now we only had one meeting with a Malaysian military attache," he said.
For now, Vietnamese teams will stop searching the sea south of Ca Mau province, the
southern tip of Vietnam, and shift the focus to areas east of Ca Mau, said Doan Luu, the
director of international affairs at the Vietnamese Civil Aviation Authority.
At a news conference Wednesday, Malaysian transportation minister Hishamuddin Bin
Hussein defended his government's approach.
"We have been very consistent in the search," he said.
Confusion over flight path
But even figuring out where authorities believe the plane may have gone down has been
a difficult and shifting proposition.
In the immediate aftermath of the plane's disappearance, search and rescue efforts were
focused on the Gulf of Thailand, along the expected flight path between Malaysia and
Vietnam.
Over the weekend, authorities suddenly expanded their search to the other side of the
Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca where search efforts now seem to be
concentrated.
That location is hundreds of miles off the plane's expected flight path.
An explanation appeared to come Tuesday when a senior Malaysian Air Force official said
that the Air Force had tracked the plane to a spot near the small island of Palau Perak off
Malaysia's west coast in the Straits of Malacca.
The plane's identifying transponder had stopped sending signals, too, said the official,
who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Malaysia's civilian administration appeared to dispute the report, however.
The New York Times quoted a spokesman for the Malaysian prime minister's office as
saying Tuesday that military officials had told him there was no evidence the plane had
flown back over the Malay Peninsula to the Straits of Malacca.
The Prime Minister's office didn't immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Then, in another shift, Malaysian authorities said at a news conference Wednesday that
radar records reviewed in the wake of the plane's disappearance reveal an unidentified
aircraft traveling across the Malay Peninsula and some 200 miles into the Straits of
Malacca.
However, it wasn't clear whether that radar signal represented Malaysia Airlines Flight
370, Gen. Rodzali Daud, head of the Malaysian Air Force, said at the news conference.
Rodzali said Wednesday that officials are still "examining and analyzing all possibilities"
when it comes to the plane's flight path.
Malaysian officials are asking experts from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and
National Transportation Safety Board to help them analyze the radar data.
The FAA said Wednesday that it "stands ready to provide any necessary additional
support."
The agency has already sent two technical experts and another official to Kuala Lumpur
as part of a NTSB investigative team.
No trace
The search zones includes huge swaths of ocean on each side of the Malay Peninsula, as
well as land.
Forty-two ships and 39 planes from 12 countries have been searching the sea between
the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam, the area where the plane lost
contact with air traffic controllers.
But they are also looking off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Straits of
Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea.
So far, searchers have found no trace of the plane.
What happened leading to the plane's disappearance also remains a mystery. Leading
theories include hijacking, an explosion or a catastrophic mechanical failure.
Suggestions that the plane had veered off course and that its identifying transponder
was not working raise obvious concerns about a hijacking, analysts said. But a
catastrophic power failure or other problem could also explain the anomalies, analysts
say.
In a sign authorities are looking at all options, Kuala Lumpur police said they are
searching the home of the airliner's Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah.
They were also questioning a man who hosted two Iranians who boarded the flight on
stolen passports, the man - Mohammad Mallaei - said on Wednesday.
Authorities have previously said they do not believe the men had any connection to
terror groups.
Families' frustration
As the vexing search drags on, frustration has grown among friends and family of those
who were on board.
"Time is passing by. The priority should be to search for the living," a middle-aged man
shouted before breaking into sobs during a meeting with airline officials in Beijing on
Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.
Other people at the meeting also voiced their frustration at the lack of information.
Most of those on the flight were Chinese, and the Chinese government has urged
Malaysia to speed up the pace of its investigation.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Wednesday appealed for patience.
"The families involved have to understand that this is something unexpected," Najib
said. "The families must understand more efforts have been made with all our
capabilities."
http://kdvr.com/2014/03/12/chinese-agency-says-they-may-have-found-crash-site/
Curt Lewis